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There’s a big difference between zero covid globally and zero covid in a specific jurisdiction with good public health and border controls. The UK is an island
by graeme 6y ago
There’s a big difference between zero covid globally and zero covid in a specific jurisdiction with good public health and border controls.
The UK is an island and absolutely could have gone zero covid. I don’t think any island that aimed at it failed.
But the UK had other goals and explicitly decided not to seek zero covid. Since Scotland had
no interal border with England, zero covid wasn’t possible.
- throwaway4good 6y agoChina has implemented zero covid.
- yorwba 6y agoThere were multiple localized outbreaks in border areas and cities with international airports, because of lapses in quarantine measures. If Scotland wants to implement a zero-covid policy while England doesn't, they'll need to limit all cross-border traffic to a trickle, with supervised quarantine for everyone who does cross the border, and they'll need to treat a large area behind the border as a buffer zone where a single case outside quarantine immediately results in a lockdown. Not impossible, but unlikely to be popular before it's successfully implemented.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago> Not impossible It might be. Scotland doesn't seem to have authority to prevent freedom of movement within the UK. In several countries, things like mask laws and business closures have been struck down by courts because it was found that the state doesn't actually have the authority to impose that.
- graeme 6y agoChina controls its borders. Scotland doesn’t. That was my point.